The Disappointing Truth About Ivanka Trump's Inspiring Speech

At last night's Republican National Convention, Ivanka Trump gave an inspiring speech about the importance of equal pay for equal work and affordable, accessible child care for working mothers. The only problem: Her father, the actual candidate, has given little indication he supports any of what his daughter says he does. Instead, it seems Ivanka, like many female family members of politicians before her, has one job: to do the bidding of the actual person in power when it comes to "women and children," who make up the majority of the country but are nevertheless routinely treated like a special interest group by the men elected to office.

Ivanka, the author of a to-be-published book called Women Who Work, divided her speech introducing her father into two categories: emphasizing his business experience and painting him as a feminist. Donald Trump, she said, "is color-blind and gender-neutral." At his company, "there are more female than male executives. Women are paid equally for the work that we do and when a woman becomes a mother, she is supported, not shut out." And finally, the campaign promise: "As president, my father will change the labor laws that were put into place at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce," Ivanka said. "And he will focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all." For a feminist-minded person just tuning in to her speech, it would have all sounded pretty appealing, if you didn't realize she was talking about Donald Trump.

It was an interesting pledge about a candidate who called a female professional breastfeeding "disgusting," who derided a woman from the organization Make It Work who asked him about his position on child care last year ("It's a big subject, darling," Trump said), who called pregnancy an "inconvenience" for businesses, and who has been virtually mum, save for a small handful of vague statements, about gender equality in the course of a campaign in which he has not hesitated to offer a sweeping series of opinions and proposals.

Tellingly, Ivanka's comments about working mothers were about that only — mothers. The word "father" comes up in her speech a lot, but only in reference to her own. While she's right that mothers suffer discrimination in pay, hiring, and promotions, and that all working women (but especially those with children) need more resources, she left out a crucial component: men, and especially fathers. Men spend more time with their children than ever before, but women, regardless of whether or not they work, still spend far more time on childcare and housework than men. Women who work for pay outside the home come home to a "second shift" of unpaid at-home work, in part because many men simply don't pull their own weight domestically. There are only so many hours in the day, and when women are spending so many more of theirs on child care and work at home, men are able to spend more at the office, and reap the financial and social benefits that come along with it.

Ivanka's speech was important, and its focus on women's needs laudable. But its implication that securing child care and balancing work and family remains a woman's job is less praiseworthy — and certainly right out of the Trump family playbook. Ivanka could have talked about the role all parents play in raising children, and how progressive family policies could enable both men and women to both care for their children and provide for their households. But that may have exposed some uncomfortable Trump clan hypocrisies.

Trump, by his own admission — or his own boasting, depending on your read — is one of those men who did little in his own household, instead expecting his wives to take nearly full responsibility for child care while he earned the money. This kind of dated view of traditional gender roles doesn't just impact the women these old-fashioned men are married to, but those they work with: Men who have stay-at-home wives are more likely than men with working wives to hold women back at the office, denying them the chance to be promoted and operating, as one researcher said, as "a pocket of resistance to the gender revolution in the workplace."

Trotting out a wife or daughter to speak to "women's issues" is sadly standard political fare, and certainly not a Trump invention. Even when the woman is an insightful advocate — Eleanor Roosevelt, for example, a brilliant feminist who actually helped to move the needle on her husband's policies — it remains shameful that it takes a female surrogate to get issues primarily impacting women onto the political stage. Women are not a numerical minority. We are distinct from children, despite the pervasive "women and children" rhetorical combo and the lesser social position it implies. Our interests should have had an equal impact on policy decades ago. And politicians, male and female, should speak directly to us instead of primarily dispatching other women for the job.

For all the thousands of words Donald Trump spoke last night, none of them were about child care and equal pay, the issues his daughter had just claimed he cared so much about. Neither are those issues mentioned on his website. And the ideas his daughter offered are all Democratic talking points and policy proposals, making one wonder what the Republican Party has left to appeal to women if the Trump camp has decided liberals win the day on gender issues.

That even Republicans are pushing child care and equal pay is a step in the right direction. But again, it's coming from a woman who isn't even running for office, in a pretty transparent effort to secure women's votes for a man. And when women who are running for office emphasize the issues that disproportionately impact women, they're accused of playing the "gender card" — like Hillary Clinton was, by Donald Trump. I would be marginally more open to believing Trump cared about women's issues if he had ever changed a diaper, done half the housework, or talked about women — even those he dislikes — with respect instead of calling them dogs and pigs.

But he can't even meet that baseline. It's wonderful that he has a good relationship with his daughter, and that she's a bright, impressive woman. But the first daughter doesn't make policy. And a potential President Trump has been clear on what he has to say about women's rights: almost nothing.

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